Collaborate with us on a backstory for Azeglio Manzella by chronicling his upbringing and how channeled life with a blind father into a passion for space exploration and research.
Education: Cellular Biology, Molecular Biology, and Pharmaceuticals.
Backstory: Growing up Azeglio had a deep seated admiration for his father. Despite his blindness often causing him issues and limiting the things he could do, Azeglio’s father was always a joyful man of many talents. He was highly intelligent and used his wit to his advantage at every opportunity. Oftentimes there was not much anyone could do to stop his father when he decided to do something. Azeglio grew up with this as the norm. Helping his father when he requested or needed it, watching over two rambunctious younger siblings and having a great sense of responsibility instilled in him with every commitment he made. However three things stand out clearest in Azeglio’s memories.
The first was the divorce of his parents. His parents assure him that at some point in their lives they did love each other, but due to their differences, they grew apart. His father couldn’t handle his mother’s emotional barriers anymore. Azeglio always remembered her as a closed off woman, never saying praise or having much interest in anything. She grew colder to the family seemingly every day. Almost becoming a ghost in their house. At the time, Azeglio could only watch as his father’s smile would fall and he would hide in his hands in sorrow when he thought the kids weren’t around. Meanwhile his mother couldn’t handle caring for his father anymore. He could recall clearly the time his father had fallen down the stairs due to missing a step. In a rare show of emotion, his mother cried all night while watching over his father. It took a toll on her, watching every time his father was hurt or struggled. He supposed, in their own way they did love each other, but just weren’t meant to be. Or maybe they just didn’t try hard enough. He never knew.
The second memory that stuck out to him was his grandmother’s funeral. He was about to graduate high school when his grandmother on his father’s side passed away. During the wake, Azeglio drank with his father. It was the first time it was just the two of them and a bottle of liquor for company. In the somber peace, Azeglio asked his father what he would have liked to do with their grandmother one last time. His father answered that he would have loved to see her laugh one last time. Explaining that when he was a child, he always thought she had the warmest smiles. This then led to his father stating that he wished he could see all of his childrens’ smiles, saying that he’s certain that they’re probably the most beautiful things he would ever see. That was when Azeglio resolved to help people like his father and, if he can, find a cure for his father’s blindness.
The last memory that haunts him is the diagnosis. In more recent years, shortly after Azeglio received news that he would be accepted onto the ISS, his father was diagnosed with cancer. With his father’s prognosis being only a few years at maximum, Azeglio wanted to figure out how to help restore his father’s eyesight in order to fulfill his wish to see his children smile. He also holds out a small hope that the research will possibly unearth something helpful. Eventually, it becomes clear that he’s partially using this to avoid facing the reality of his father’s fate.
His motives: Azeglio had gone into his field in hopes of finding a cure to his father’s blindness, which stems from a genetic disorder called Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON). Due to this disease primarily affecting the mitochondria, he specialized his fields accordingly and began studying all he could that could possibly be related to the cell. Eventually he came across NASA studies about space travel and its effect on the mitochondria, realizing that both his father’s disease and these space travel issues may be key to solving each other.
How he ended up on the ISS: He was personally scouted for their Cell and Molecular Biology Program. His research and thesis into the effects of space travel on the mitochondria along with possible pharmaceuticals that could manage or prevent the strains of space travel on the human body caught the attention of most of the science community. His minor successes in lab settings in his university by replicating mitochondrial stress on rats and managing the symptoms with medicines like Idebenone (a potent antioxidant typically used to treat Alzhiemers, LHONs, and muscular dystrophy), opened the doors for him on the ISS as it became apparent that his research would have to be conducted in space since it is vital to further the attempts of allowing humans to remain in space for longer periods of time.
Current: As seen in Chapter 1, Azeglio has failed another experiment. So far his experiment has allowed him to slow damage to cells for both illness and space travel, but it cannot prevent it from occurring, reverse its effect or even stop it. Defeat, panic, stress, and anxiety is building up. Not only is he failing his father, now that the situation has turned dire both on the ISS and Earth he’s failing his team as well. With his team in a tough spot and essentially only having each other to rely on, will he be able to hold it together and rely on his knowledge in science and medicine to help?
Direction: Azeglio would be a story about responsibility, perseverance, acceptance, and the weight of hope. As a character who tries to carry all responsibility on his shoulders, he must learn to rely on others and understand that not all failure is his fault. His responsibility should be within reason and not held to the overly high expectations that he holds himself to. When coming into this realization he will also need to build his perseverance. Despite how much he feels he is breaking down and actually does break down, he must go again and try to attack his problems from different angles. He’s intelligent and he uses that to his advantage just like his father. Eventually he must learn to accept reality. Whether that be facing his failures, the impossible, or his father’s fate. Azeglio must learn that he must learn to accept things to move on. Above all, his story is about the weight of hope. Azeglio carries his own hopes and the hopes of others within himself. This simultaneously weighs him down while also being his primary motivation. His hope constantly borders him on the line of despair and in order to shake this, he sometimes needs to take a step back to look at things with a logical/detached point of view.
